Housing Benefit: Social Housing Units

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

We are having a very substantial study done on the supported housing sector. That will come out later this year and we are looking at what our policies should be to support that sector.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, as private sector rents are normally higher than social rents, this could lead to an increase in housing benefit paid to private sector landlords, if the volume of private sector rental properties available is outstripped by demand from those renting there instead of in the social sector or from those who cannot afford to buy a property. Does the Minister agree?

[Lord Freud]

No, you have to look at the round trip. A single person in a three-bedroom place, say, may move out to the private rented sector. That might be more expensive, but then you can take a family, who are very expensive in the private rented sector, and put them in the cheaper, social rented sector. That round-trip effect in somewhere like Enfield is worth £2,500 a year to the state; the typical figure for a place such as Lincoln would be more than £600 to the state.